The Community of Nuchi Du Takara ("Life Is the Ultimate Treasure") in Postwar Okinawa

Against the background of the prolonged presence of the US military in postWorld War II Okinawa, The Community of Nuchi Du Takara (Life Is the Ultimate Treasure) in Postwar Okinawa explores the conflict between Okinawa and the US-Japan alliance. Inoue examines how Okinawan activists, artists, writers, and others have resisted US military presence, particularly the planned construction of a new military facility in northern Okinawa. In so doing, however, Inoue also underscores something in postwar Okinawa that one fails to grasp if one approaches it solely through the lens of resistance or protest. In historically and ethnographically grappling with this something, he develops a local notion of nuchi du takara (life is the ultimate treasure) into an analytical concept. Inoue shows how nuchi du takara has functioned as a cultural cushion inserted between the constituent power of Okinawan social actors from below and the constituted power of the US-Japan alliance from above; it has helped Okinawan social actors externally engage in complex negotiationscompromises and concessions as well as resistances and protestsvis--vis Washington and Tokyo, a process involving the development of the internal capacity of their community to embrace diverse and often contradictory attitudes toward the US military for small yet significant and incremental social changes if not revolution. Inoues grounded investigation points toward the possibility of a World Republican international politics built upon universal peace, global democracy, and shared affluenceagainst the current sovereignty of global capitalism.